Clearing Away the Dust
by Colors del Cielo
Summary: It's only after you wake up that you realize it's a dream. - Yamamoto-centric, during Shimon Arc, oneshot


_This is dedicated to my (Shiro's) beloved favorite character in KHR. Happy belated birthday, Yamamoto Takeshi!  
I decided to focus on him during the few chapters when he was kind of forgotten in the hospital. I'm pretty sure this definitely never happened, but I suppose it's canon compliant._

Please read all the way to the end, even if it's confusing. Hint: Yamamoto will wake up four and a half times in this story.

_Warnings: some mild gore but I assure you it will get less bloody later on.  
-kun is a Japanese honorific that is used mainly between boys of the same approximate age, when talking to peers._  
_  
Katekyo Hitman Reborn! and characters © Amano Akira_

* * *

Yamamoto Takeshi was falling through a downpour of red. Faster than the crimson droplets could hit the ground, he landed with an uncomfortable _squelch_ in his own gore.

There was a hole in his stomach where Kaoru Mizuno's drill-arm had punched through and twisted out, but Yamamoto's body was already numbing all the nerves in that area to save the boy from having to feel the pain. Or perhaps there was too much pain to actually identify it? Either way, the teen could already feel his energy leaving him in flowing rivulets.

Another body-wracking shudder caused Yamamoto to writhe on the bloody floor of the baseball club's locker room. His spine stiffened as a screeching, clawing jolt traveled down down down until it hit his tailbone and pulsed before starting at the top of his spine again. Anything below his hips was nonexistent to Yamamoto's overloaded mind. Pain-glazed brown eyes jerked upwards to watch his traitorous friend hastily make his exit.

_Not . . . good . . . Tsu . . . na!_ thought Yamamoto desperately. His ears registered a guttural noise as more crimson spurted from his mouth and landed on the floor. Had he said that out loud?

He tried to move his hand and was awarded with erratic twitches of his fingers. The boy smiled grimly (or he at least thought he did; it was hard to tell what his face was doing when he was stuck in this dulled haze), and he began writing the word "Delitto," the word he'd seen on the crossed-out Vongola insignia.

Giddily, he thought, _Someone should think of using blood as ink. There's always so much of it, and it writes pretty well. _Maddeningly painful chuckles caused him to gasp and spasm some more on the floor, smearing his own marks. Right, no morbid jokes then.

He wasn't entirely sure if his hand had finished writing his full message before a bubble of iron-tasting liquid leaked from his mouth and his world plunged sideways into oblivion. He wasn't conscious to hear Ryohei's panicked shout or the frantic ambulance sirens that followed not long after.

* * *

The Rain Guardian floated in the darkness and watched everything turn a little greyer and brighten. He thought he heard the frightening sound of a heart monitor _beepBEEPbeepBEEP_, but he dismissed it as his imagination. No doubt it was just his bedside alarm trying to motivate him to rise for another day of school. Yamamoto trusted that his father would shake him awake soon enough.

Of course, this didn't stop Yamamoto from frowning when he heard a disturbingly familiar voice screaming—sobbing—"NOO! _NO!_" These heart-wrenching pleas caused Yamamoto to regain lucidity for a brief moment before relapsing. The darkness was too comforting.

A sound like death stole over Yamamoto's mind. And he continued falling.

* * *

The beeping of a heart monitor was the first sound that the conscious Yamamoto heard. The second was his father's voice.

Warm arms encircled him. "Takeshi, you're awake!" A tremulous chuckle-sob followed.

"Dad?" the boy croaked out, mind whirling as he raised his sore arms to return the gesture.

Looking around, he saw that he was in Namimori Central Hospital. (He'd already been here several times before, particularly during the Ring battles against the Varia.) The white walls reflected the rays of the afternoon sun that poured in through the open windows. A cool breeze swept in and ruffled both Yamamotos' hair.

"Takeshi, are you feeling okay?" Yamamoto Tsuyoshi asked, pulling his son's drifting attention back.

The teen emitted a strained version of his signature laugh. "Yeah, I guess."

But as he moved his hand to touch the spot where he'd been stabbed, he was shocked to feel only bandaged stitches under his shirt where more would surely have been needed. Somehow, Yamamoto didn't think that bandages and stitches were the appropriate measures to heal a person who'd just had a new hole forced through their body.

"What happened to my injury? How long have I been here?" Yamamoto questioned his father, pulling up his shirt to stare disbelievingly at the wraps circling his body.

The man only gave his son a puzzled stare. He responded, "You've been here a few days, but that's only because you were put to sleep so that your body could rest. You were lucky you were only cut a few times by that guy's knife, but you still lost too much blood."

This information spun around inside the boy's head for a while, not fitting in with any of his memories. What man was his father talking about? Wasn't it Kaoru Mizuno, his fellow baseball team mate, who had stabbed him? Right after he had given back that slip of paper . . .

And then he saw his Vongola ring and remembered the Inheritance Ceremony. _Warn Tsuna!_ his mind cried.

His hand shot out and grabbed his dad's shoulder. Urgently, he asked, "What about Tsuna? Is he okay?"

An odd distortion formed a clear wall between Yamamoto and his dad, but it blinked out of existence not even a second later. Yamamoto dismissed the mirage as a trick of the eyes, unfazed by the ripple in his vision, but was soon thrown into a state of confusion by his father's response.

"I don't know about this Tsuna kid, but only you got hurt. Come on, I'll bring you home. Maybe you need a little more sleep, 'cuz you're sounding a little delirious, son! I hope you'll be feeling well enough to go back to school tomorrow," the elder laughed, clapping him on the back good-naturedly.

The words "this Tsuna kid" planted a seed of unease in Yamamoto, but his overall disorientation overshadowed it. He knew for sure that his injury had not involved any man with a knife, and the fact that the rather gruesome wound had healed seamlessly caused more than a bit of worry for the swordsman. However, Yamamoto covered up his uncertainty with a small smile and let his father lead him to the check out and back home.

Before letting the blackness sleep claim him, Yamamoto curled up under his covers and reached for the blue keychain that he had bought one summer day at a festival. He smiled nostalgically as he remembered the red and orange ones that he had insisted his friends buy as well.

Hugging it to his chest tightly, he called upon all of his will, directing it into one thought: "Please let Tsuna and everyone be okay."

* * *

When the Japanese teenager woke up the next morning, he ignored the almost foreign feeling of alarm that rushed through his head. Something was wrong, but it was hard to recognize exactly _what_ it was.

Yamamoto rolled off his futon and stretched and looked out his dew-covered window. The sky looked the same, though maybe a bit dulled, and there was not one sign of rain, mist or storm cloud in that blue expanse. He thought he heard the rumble of thunder far away, but that only turned out to be a truck. Although he couldn't see the morning sun, outside still looked as bright as ever.

It should have been perfect, but something _was wrong_.

However, convinced that his instincts were overreacting, Yamamoto simply turned around and started undressing for a shower.

"Takeshi! You're going to be late for school if you wait any longer!" his dad's shout echoed up the stairs. Okay, skip the shower then.

He quickly threw his pajama shirt onto his blankets before hastily pulling on his uniform and grabbing his school shoulder bag. He didn't notice the sudden downpour of white feathers that coalesced into a white-haired man with wings, far away on a rooftop. Nor did the teen notice that all the scars and bandages from his stay at the hospital had disappeared, as if they hadn't existed in the first place.

* * *

Upon entering the gates of Namimori Middle School, Yamamoto experienced a spinning feeling of vertigo, and he had to grab onto the gate for support. He was falling down down down and no one was there and the malevolent blackness was clutching at him and grabbing—

—and then he was back on his feet just inside school grounds as he gagged and wheezed. The liquid contents of his stomach were at his feet, sinking into the ground. His throat burned fiercely, protesting against the acid that the throw up had left behind. A searing flame burst into a supernova inside his abdomen, causing the boy to hunch over with a low whine. His brown eyes squinted in agony as tremors ran up and down his spine. A different blackness spotted his sight, his senses narrowing so that he could only sense his own body.

It was over in less than five minutes, leaving the boy speechless and considerably frightened. He was hesitant to move at first, afraid of triggering that unknown pain again. Unfortunately, when he did manage to stand upright, a steel tonfa cut into his neck and a terrifying hiss tickled his nape.

"Yamamoto Takeshi. How _dare_ an herbivore dirty the grounds of Namimori with the revolting remains of an herbivore's food," Hibari Kyoya spat as he choked the other student mercilessly. "You will clean this up using only your pathetic paws and you will do it in the minute you have before your class starts. Or you'll be seeing me after school hours for your proper punishment."

Hibari's foot connected with the backs of Yamamoto's knees, leaving the latter sprawled on the ground in his own mess. Needless to say, it was not one of Yamamoto's better mornings, all things considered.

* * *

And his day definitely didn't look like it was getting any better any time soon. Once he entered the classroom (ten minutes late), he found that no matter what he tried, he couldn't manage to pass a note to neither Tsuna nor Gokudera. And every time the boy tried to approach either of them, his baseball coach, his fangirls, his fellow club members and even his teachers would somehow get into his way.

It was unexplainable, but he felt the urgency to tell Tsuna something, something he couldn't quite place a finger on. It aggravated him, not knowing exactly what he wanted to say, but it still made no difference when he couldn't even make contact with the Vongola boss.

However, this didn't bother him nearly as much as how his two best friends seemed to ignore him, regardless of what he did or said. After getting called on and guessing the answer in his usual manner, he had sheepishly looked towards Tsuna, expecting the other's reassuring smile in return. But what he saw instead was Tsuna glancing from his paper to Gokudera, writing down the numbers that the Italian-Japanese was holding up. Although it was just the usual Tsuna, struggling to complete his assignment even as the class reviewed it, it was undeniable that neither Vongola had even noticed Yamamoto.

_Gokudera and Tsuna wouldn't ignore me, would they? Did something happen that they don't want me involved in?_ Yamamoto desperately wanted to ask them, but everyone kept. getting. in. his way! He groaned in frustration and dropped his head onto his arms. He began counting down the minutes until the end of school.

* * *

As soon as the bell rang, Yamamoto shoved his chair backwards and whirled around to finally confront the Vongola Tenth and his right-hand man. And he was only mildly surprised to see their backs already walking out the door. Of course. Should've guessed it wouldn't be so easy.

Tired of being foiled by fate again and again, he decided to simply shove through the crowds of departing Namimori students. More than one girl looked like she was on the verge of tears at seeing such uncharacteristic behavior from the students' beloved idol.

Finally, he managed to catch up to his best friends, trotting breathlessly to tap Tsuna on the shoulder. Tsuna spun around with a befuddled expression, and Gokudera growled and made to slap Yamamoto's offensive hand away.

The baseball star used his quick reflexes to pull his hand back in time. He was used to his fellow Guardian's ill-tempered swipes, but he was rather surprised at the raw animosity in this case. He decided to get straight to the point before Gokudera stormed off.

"Hey guys, I was wondering if you already had that Inheritance Ceremony. I'm sorry I haven't heard anything, but I was . . ." he trailed off as he tried to remember exactly _why_ he was out of commission anyway.

Shaking his head, he continued, "Anyway, did anything happen while I was gone? You two were kind of ignoring me, so I figured—"

His hesitant sentence was cut off abruptly as his head was slammed into the wall lining the dusty street. Black encroached upon his vision as his ears rang.

"What do you know about the Vongola, bastard!" Gokudera snarled, fist twisting upwards to choke off the other's airways. His other hand whipped out three dynamite sticks and held them under the lightly glowing end of his electric cigarette.

Relief swept through Yamamoto when he heard the stuttering and panicked voice of Tsuna requesting Gokudera to "kindly release him," but that was replaced by ice cold dread when he saw the wariness that stiffened his friend's posture. Neither of them showed any recognition of their best friend and Rain Guardian. This realization caused Yamamoto's heart to contract painfully.

"Gokudera-kun, let him speak! Uh, I'm sorry . . . whoever you are. But would you mind telling us how you know about the mafia and the Inheritance Ceremony? And don't think of running until we decide if you're an enemy or not."

Anxious silence. Then a fake laugh rang flatly off the concrete walls and pavement of the empty street. Both the brunette and silver-haired boys flinched at the sound, and they searched their captive's face for an explanation for the outburst.

"Hahaha! I really should've introduced myself first, sorry," Yamamoto responded easily, although his mind still struggled to make sense of what was happening.

What Yamamoto saw was the same nervous expression Tsuna showed when he was analyzing an uncomfortable situation. And that was the same infuriated and suspicious grimace that Gokudera wore when confronting unfamiliar threats. But a twinge of déjà vu caused Yamamoto's subconscious to scream, _Something's not right!_ And certainly, Yamamoto could now see that there was something definitely wrong with the Sky.

His fists clenched tight as he forced his tears back.

But instead of voicing his thoughts out loud, he chose to lie, leaving the crying until later on, when he was away from his friends.

_No_, thought Yamamoto numbly, _not these "friends." My real ones, the ones who care about and love me._

"I was actually supposed to attend your Vongola Inheritance Ceremony, but I was sent away for a while and only just got back to Namimori. I decided to just ask you directly if I missed it or not. Again, sorry for scaring you, ahaha!" He forced an easygoing smile to stretch across his face, the tips of his mouth twitching minutely from the effort.

The other two exchanged glances, then Gokudera abruptly returned to Tsuna's right side.

"Tenth, I don't think this idiot means us any harm," the Storm Guardian whispered, leaning towards Tsuna. His grey-emerald eyes were still fixed steadfastly on Yamamoto.

At Tsuna's nod, Gokudera crossed his arms and stepped closer to the other student. "We're still not sure if we trust you. But, yes, the ceremony was held a few days ago. We hope that you will prove your worth to our alliance without interfering in the Tenth's life from now."

A jerking feeling, so very close to horror, tore through Yamamoto's stomach, but when he opened his mouth in protest, Gokudera silenced him curtly. "That means _leave us_ the hell alone, retard!"

And with only one brown-eyed gaze backwards, Tsuna and Gokudera hurried off and turned the corner. The empty spot to the left of the Vongola Tenth Boss looked rather lonely to Yamamoto as his vision blurred unwillingly.

Knees hit the walkway with dull cracking sounds, unable to support his body. Trembling hands rose to cover his face from view.

And clear droplets fell to the ground.

* * *

The sky was just turning the hazy red of sunset when Yamamoto woke up again.

_How'd I get here?_ was his first thought, and he stared, confused, at his surroundings. Somehow, he had made his way to the rooftop? When? He only remembered tears pouring down his face, a sharp sense of distance . . .

His eyes landed on the fencing that bordered the rooftop, and his body jolted out of the blue, falling, yet another time, down down _down_—

Hearing the click of the rooftop door opening, Yamamoto turned dizzyingly upon his heel, gasping for breath. The head prefect had finally discovered the lingering Namimori middle school student.

Hibari merely paused for a moment to briefly consider the silvery, dried tracks on Yamamoto Takeshi's cheeks and the fluttering pulse in his neck. Then he was spinning towards the other teen in a black whirlwind, striking a blow to his chest, steel against cloth against flesh. A satisfying wheezing noise made Hibari grin predatorily.

"No loitering on school grounds, herbivore. And no avoiding your punishment from this morning either."

Not even the familiar routine of swinging his baseball-turned-sword managed to dissipate the agony of loss that simmered inside Yamamoto. Nor that dreadful feeling of plummeting to his death.

* * *

After nursing his wounds and bandaging himself up (huh, that's odd, didn't his midsection feel like it had been bandaged recently?), Yamamoto lay face up on his futon. There were too many odd occurrences, too many incorrect things. The world felt like it was a new machine that had been constructed wrong all around him while he was sleeping. Or maybe it was Yamamoto who was the gear that didn't quite fit.

He kept getting the urge to wake up, even when he was perfectly up and alert. And then there were moments when he felt spontaneous sparks traveling up and down his spine, and a scrunched-up, cramping pain in his stomach. And above it all, permeating throughout his hearing, was a shrill, keening note, like an alarm he couldn't turn off.

As Yamamoto turned over, his shoulders tensed and his mind was overcome with a lightning bolt of excruciating agony. He was captured in throes of anguish, but he could see something behind his closed eyelids. A faceless, crying person, holding something drill-like . . . ?

_I'm sorry_, the shadow whispered before sweeping out the locker room door.

And just as quickly as it had surfaced, the harrowing mental torture washed away. Someone was knocking loudly on Yamamoto's bedroom door. Drenched in sweat, the boy swiftly grabbed his pajama shirt from that morning, hastily wiped away his salty moisture with it, and then went to answer the door. He expected to see his father's easy grin.

What he saw instead was the refreshing smile of Byakuran, framed by his startlingly white hair. He wore punk-casual clothes, including torn jeans, a spiked collar and a studded white jacket. As soon as the door opened, the man leaned back a little and, with both hands shoved into his jean pockets, beamed at the Japanese boy. "Heya. Long time no see, Yamamoto Takeshi."

Startled, the Vongola Guardian only hesitated for a second before drawing his sword and pinning the intruder against the door frame, sharp edge of the blade held firmly against Byakuran's slim neck.

Feeling quite a bit like Gokudera, he rasped out, "What are you doing here! I thought Tsuna got rid of you in that alternate future."

"Whoa, there!" Byakuran said in alarm, eyes almost widened to comical proportions. He held up both hands in a placating manner. "I'm here to help you, not hurt you!"

At this, Yamamoto merely eyed him, disbelief and distrust nearly palpable from just his gaze alone. The blade tilted just low enough so that the man wouldn't nick his Adam's apple as he swallowed.

"Hm. Sorry if I don't automatically accept you as an ally, but you basically destroyed our lives in that future. We could have sworn you were sealed away when we left, but here you are now. Who's to say you won't want to tear our lives apart again?"

A sigh, and Byakuran said beseechingly, "If you looked at me a little longer, I think you'll realize that, although I have all the knowledge that the other me had, I am _nothing_ like that one." He tried to follow up this statement with a disarming smile in order to convince Yamamoto, but it took a few more seconds for Yamamoto to nod curtly and take a small step away from the ex-Mare Ring holder. He gave the man a cursory glance, and noticed the seemingly random feathers strewn all over the hallway. He wasn't able to give the unusual scene more than a moment's thought before Byakuran started talking again.

"Thanks for letting me in. Before I start, though, I just want to let you know how hard it was for me to get to you. Every time I thought I was close to you, the world would redirect me, and before I knew it, I'd end up even farther from you.

"You sound a little crazy right now, Byakuran," Yamamoto deadpanned, dropping his sword so that it was hanging at his side, loosely grasped in his right hand. It didn't, of course, mean that he wasn't ready to use it at a moment's notice.

"Now, that isn't a very nice thing to say. If you keep talking like that, I really will leave without helping you," Byakuran teased.

"I have no idea what you're saying though! What 'world' are you speaking of? Do you know what's been happening to me, then? Why do both of my best friends act like they've never spoken to me before?" His voice cracked on the last few words.

Byakuran turned his grim smile towards the window, at the bleak sky peering through the glass pane. "That's because this isn't the real world. These," he explained simply, gesturing all around, "are only what your fears and doubts have created inside your mind."

Yamamoto blinked in astonishment. Was the man simply spouting lies? He frowned as the other continued.

"At first, this world's only purpose was to protect you from the pain by locking you up in a safe reality. But then, you started believing in too much of what you saw, and your fears conceived of world after world where you hadn't joined the mafia, nor broken your arm. You're living in your own lies, Takeshi-kun. This is why I've entered your sleeping consciousness to wake you up."

Yamamoto stared blankly at him, absorbing and evaluating this information.

"This was nicely made, if that's any consolation. Even _I'd_ believe this was real! Not bad for your eightieth attempt," Byakuran commented, running his hand along the window frame, then over the mahogany edge of the boy's desk.

_Eightieth attempt?_

"How long have I been in this state?" Yamamoto asked, growing apprehension curling up in his heart. "If I can't wake up . . . are Tsuna and the others still okay? I can't remember anything clearly. If you're right, and I've been confusing reality with imagination, then I don't know which parts I've made up now."

Seeing the distress that the teenager was in, Byakuran answered without delay, "You're fatally injured. The boy, Kaoru Mizuno, had stabbed you all the way through and your spine was nearly severed. All of your lower abdominal organs were critically damaged. If not for my knowledge from parallel universes, you wouldn't be alive."

The remnant pangs of hurt pulsed briefly before fading. Yamamoto instinctively touched his the skin over his stomach and nodded his thanks.

"But that's not all," the white-haired man carried on. "The Shimon have betrayed you and your friends, but now the Vongola _and the Shimon_ are both fighting against a mutual enemy—Daemon Spade, the First Vongola Mist Guardian. You're needed out there, Yamamoto Takeshi."

Byakuran's lavender eyes pierced through the teenager.

"As for my reasons for coming here and helping," he shrugged, resuming his playful demeanor, "let's just say that a little child asked me. I'm not the same Byakuran you knew."

"So what can I do to get out? To wake up? If my friends need me, I have to give it my all."

"Ah, that's easy," Byakuran laughed, picking up a baseball and tossing it up and down. "You're already going to wake up, now that I've helped you become aware of this false reality. I already took care of all the hard parts outside as well. You simply need to open your eyes now."

With those words, the abrupt sounds of a harsh rain drummed against the windows, sweeping away the details of the scenery outside.

Yamamoto's vision swam and distorted briefly, and he dropped to the floor, breathing hard. He felt an inexorable pull. But this time around, it was an upwards tug instead of downwards.

"Ah, it's about time!" Byakuran cheerfully announced. "I'll just exit now and leave you to it. Follow this feather"—a white one drifted to a stop in front of the kneeling boy—"and you'll be fine. Just make sure to hurry up before it's too late."

The enemy-turned-ally walked briskly to the entryway, heeled boots making dull thumps on the bedroom floor. He pulled the door open. The familiar hallway of Yamamoto's memories had been replaced by a swirling blackness, deep and seemingly forever, but not menacing in any way. Without hesitation, Byakuran took a step into the abyss, but Yamamoto's voice made him stop and look back before fully entering the ebbs and tides of shadows.

Yamamoto's drooping eyes clumsily focused on the white-haired man as he panted out his last words. "Thanks! I'll be sure to tell . . . Tsuna . . . and the others about you. You're not . . . so bad . . . anymore."

And then Yamamoto Takeshi turned grey and faded away like an illusion. The white feather flashed dazzlingly before vanishing as well. The torrent of rain from outside broke through the crumbling walls and cleared away the room, scattering it into sparkling dust motes.

"For what it's worth, good luck. I'll be seeing you later, Takeshi-kun."

Waving farewell at the spot that Yamamoto had once occupied, Byakuran stepped through the cracking doorway before the boy's temporary reality crunched in on itself, crumbled into grey and glimmering specks, and disappeared.

* * *

_Beep. Beep. Beepbeep. Beepbeep._

When Yamamoto Takeshi opened his warm brown eyes in the Namimori Central Hospital, the white nearly blinded him for a moment before his pupils adjusted. The boy blinked blearily up at the ceiling before glancing down at his body. All healed, no trace of the hole that Kaoru Mizuno had punched through him.

A recognizable face appeared in his mind's eye, and Yamamoto smiled at how clear the image was. There were no unexplainable gaps in his memory, nor was there a sensation of wrongness in everything. He was back.

The Japanese boy sat up, wincing at the soreness of his body. Although healed, his muscles had been unused for quite some time, and they were still damaged slightly.

Turning towards the bedside table, a white orchid greeted him in full glory, and an abnormally shaped rock sat to the left of the flower. However, what truly captured Yamamoto's attention was the scrawled note was propped up against its glass vase.

_Better get ready. If you channel your strongest will into the block of gemstone, you'll get an upgraded Vongola gear to replace your broken ring. On the back are instructions on how to get to the island your Famiglia has gone to. Until we meet again~ _

_- Byakuran_

_P.S. You're very welcome._

And next to that note was a colorful get-well card, with dozens of signatures scribbled all over, in various handwritings, sizes and colors. Three of them stood out the most.

_Takeshi! Please get better soon! Your old man needs help running the shop. I really miss having an assistant to help me out at the bar._

A tender smile spread across his face as he gingerly touched the tear-smeared letters. Too bad his father wasn't here to see Yamamoto first.

_Hey, baseball idiot! You'd better not leave us, or I'll beat the shit out of you. Anyway, you need to wake up soon or you'll really lose your position as the almost-right-hand man._

Of course, this small note was left unsigned, but Yamamoto knew there was only one person who would say such things. But the words "leave us" gave him a haunting feeling, forcing him to recall the dream-Gokudera threatening, "_Leave us alone_." However, these two words were now spoken with a different context, and a happy feeling bloomed in Yamamoto's chest as his eyes located the third message, written in tiny, unstable loops and lines.

_Yamamoto, please get well soon. The doctors told me that you might not be able to walk again, but I can't believe that at all. Your arm healed once before; your legs will heal too, I'm sure of it. It's frustrating though—the waiting. At least, when you fell off the school roof, I had the chance to save you. But when you're lying on a bed, unable to wake up and unable to be touched without the possibility of worsening your condition . . . I never want this to happen again. We're all waiting for you to walk again and laugh with us like you usually do._

_Love, Tsuna_

_P.S. Gokudera and I bought new clothes for you to wear whenever you're able to leave the hospital. I hope you like them!_

He suppressed the laughter and tears that were begging to be let out. Sentimentalities would come after his friends were safe. Yamamoto swung his legs out of the white hospital bed and pulled on the clothes that his dearest friends had bought him. _So warm, _Yamamoto thought.

Turning back to the flower and papers, he whispered earnestly, "I promise to come back for you." He ripped off a sheet of paper from the notepad on the table and wrote an excuse to the nurses before quietly and quickly making his way through the silent hallways.

Then the Vongola's Rain swept outside to join the battle. A little white-feathered bird pecked on the hospital window, staring inside the room at the pale flower and the snowy feather left on the table.

And the white swallow took off into the sky.


End file.
